


airplane mode

by jinlinli, silentwalrus



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Airplane Bathroom Titty Selfies, Established Relationship, Honorable Mention for Mile High Club, Humor, M/M, Modern AU kinda, Roy and Ed's Relationship is a Security Breach, attempted sexting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:46:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23450419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli/pseuds/jinlinli, https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentwalrus/pseuds/silentwalrus
Summary: Roy’s in the arrivals terminal of CAIX, phone in either hand, because of a series of bad decisions that started with letting Maes talk him into getting birthday drunk the day before he was supposed to go visit two allegedly adult alchemists in Resembool and somehow managed to encompass an entire coup. He’s still paying for it more than a decade later, though these days less in blood and more in dignity. Ed is perfectly capable of getting his own ride from the airport, but between traffic, their respective scheduling and Ed’s natural tendency to be a little bitch, if Roy wants to see him before the end of the week he better pick the little bitch up in person.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 88
Kudos: 624





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> look i had a terrible dream about ed elric and cellphones and airport security so naturally i had to exorcise it via terrible modern au. Look if naruto can have macbooks i can have this ok
> 
> Smash bang thank you to my copilot jin who is a terrible enabler and to blame for much of this

Roy’s in the arrivals terminal of CAIX, phone in either hand, because of a series of bad decisions that started with letting Maes talk him into getting birthday drunk the day before he was supposed to go visit two allegedly adult alchemists in Resembool and somehow managed to encompass an entire coup. He’s still paying for it more than a decade later, though these days less in blood and more in dignity. Ed is perfectly capable of getting his own ride from the airport, but between traffic, their respective scheduling and Ed’s natural tendency to be a little bitch, if Roy wants to see him before the end of the week he better pick the little bitch up in person. 

“Sir,” Tiffany said disapprovingly, because it’s her job to minimize his idiocy insofar as that’s possible, but he’d said “It’s fine,” so here he is with Trent, Mal, Hal and Sal, all dutifully standing around him and scanning the teeming hall while he composes his fifty-seventh email of the day to Fucking Vice-Minister of the Goddamn Interior Janine. Tiffany has gone off to buy overpriced airport cafe coffee in protest. 

Roy’s not exactly thrilled to be here either, but it’s been six months and he is not above making a fool of himself to get what he wants. In the interests of appeasing Tiffany and preventing Hal’s heart attack he’s left his tie and jacket in the car and draped his coat over his shoulders, pocketing his gloves and unbuttoning his shirt enough to pass for just another businessman. So long as nobody looks too closely. Or at all, given Trent, Mal, Hal and Sal arrayed around him like extremely muscular points on a bureaucratic compass. 

They’re all going to tattle on him to Riza later, of course, but they’re suffering in silence for now. Roy hits send on Fucking Janine and clears another stupid department-wide memo about arms room turn-in procedure updates from his inbox. It’s not enough that he has to fucking sign off on the things, oh no, he has to _receive_ them as well. If only the desperate little upstarts trying to murder their way into his shoes knew what glory it is to _actually_ occupy his position. 

_U skipped out early,_ arrives from Maes at the top of his screen, followed shortly by _jesus hrist stop fuckign hitting reply all on your spat with janine._

 _No,_ Roy replies, switching to his personal phone to be able to text back with a slightly smaller chance of the chat log eventually being subpoena’d. _If I suffer, so do the rest of you._

There’s a lot of _ >:((((((((( _ for that, followed by some frankly unfounded accusations as to his character, and finally _if u skip work tomoro im sending ed the kachovski notes >:( >:) <33333, _which is an empty threat given Roy’s got the Kachovski notes ready for Ed in a locked tablet in a briefcase in the car. Deploying them will be a matter of timing and might have to come first in any case, depending on what kind of state Ed’s in when he eventually rolls off the plane. 

His flight was delayed. Not by much, but. Roy learned this via the arrivals screen, because he has yet to receive a text from Ed today since he left Zhejiang this morning. Ed always takes an age to go through customs anyway, because he refuses to travel on his military passport despite the fact that he has to provide it regardless; the moment his name enters the system it gets flagged, civilian papers or no. Roy can only imagine he gets some special pleasure out of browbeating border security agents, because it’s not like this little performance accomplishes much else beyond occasionally making Roy wait like the world’s most expensive valet.

He contemplates locating the tackiest gift store in this hellmouth and procuring the most spectacularly awful _WELCOME BACK_ teddy bear he can find. There’s got to be some real champions of cheapened affection around here. Honestly, he should’ve come prepared; this sort of thing demands the loudest bouquet of flowers he can dig up out of a grocery store florist. Roses in colors not found in nature. Balloons, frankly. Given he’s already skipped out on the day’s last three meetings to hang around in a public airport terminal like a bad romance protagonist, he may as well have gone the whole mile and given himself the pleasure of watching Ed glower and blush. Yes, flowers, definitely. Ed would probably try to make Roy eat them. 

Fifteen more minutes. He’ll answer email, then if Ed still isn’t out Roy will go and buy the ugliest thing he can find from the nearest newsstand and keep going until Tiffany takes away his credit cards. 

The work phone vibrates again. Fucking Janine’s reply has four all-caps words in just the first sentence preview, so Roy skips over it and goes back to the vastly more important missives in his inbox. Barracks visitor policy reminder. Please Welcome Our New Mess Hall Chief. Saturday Morning Brigade Run - Concept of Operation (53 slides). On This Day In Amestrisan History, In 1775 -

Roy only makes it so far before the building rage blackout takes over and he flicks back up to Fucking Janine’s latest manifesto. It is, unsurprisingly, ten more pounds of the exact same alarmist preemptive-strike thought police bullshit she’s been shoveling all day, this time with fifteen percent more capslock. Roy is, of course, firmly on the side of preemptive-strike thought police bullshit, but not when the only intel _anyone_ has isn’t enough to fill a fourth grade book report, let alone justify boots on the ground. Yes, Fucking Janine, time is of the essence. Yes, Fucking Janine, sometimes you have to take a risk and make a call. No, Fucking Janine, you can _not_ have a fucking battalion dropped into whatever the fuck region you want when you want it, let alone a border zone with delicate ethnoreligious tensions and infamously difficult terrain. 

_Thank you for raising your concerns about your completely unresearched hysterical feelings about the stability of the region_ , Roy types, safely into the notes app where he can’t accidentally hit send and start an internal incident _. Do keep in mind that command has been taking such factors into account in their decision and have deemed the current proposed deployment roster to be more than sufficient to handle the imaginary terrorists in a province where the average town numbers 50 civilians and 500 goats. please refer any further comments to general halcrow who will be more than happy to address them and kindly fuck all the way off -_

 _“Boo,”_ someone says _right in his ear,_ and he jerks an elbow backwards before any semblance of thought kicks in. 

Ed catches it, of course, grabbing Roy from the side and behind, cackling his mad little head off. _“Wretched_ creature,” Roy hisses on reflex, clutching at the phones; he very nearly hurled both of them and getting new ones configured is an absolute hell. “You little - why do I even _have_ guards?” 

“He gave us the secret signal,” Hal says, at least having the decency to sound chastised. Ed demonstrates by holding one finger to his mouth in a _shh_ and giving a wink. 

“Surrounded by treachery, I see,” Roy says. Ed still hasn’t let go of him, is still gripping Roy’s elbow and pressed up to Roy’s side, radiating heat. His braid’s a mess, there’s a half-healed scrape on one cheek, and from what Roy can see of his t-shirt it’s both expensively flimsy and ugly as sin. He’s cataloguing Roy right back, and he’s bright-eyed enough but not trying to jump up on Roy and collapse his spine in a showy kiss that’s his version of balloons and a plasticky _WELCOME BACK_ bear. 

Which would almost certainly send them viral on AmChat if not caught by press outright, and while these days Ed is a little more judicial about his encounters with journalism there’s a mutual acknowledgement that all’s fair in war; they’ve both sicced paparazzi on each other before. Ed _might_ be holding back today in the interests of getting them home sooner, same as Roy is, but there’s a slight edge to his expression that indicates that all isn’t sunshine and tequila in the land of Edward. 

Not too much of an edge, though. He’s happy to see Roy, but there’s something on his mind. Roy pockets the phone in his free hand and lets himself brush back one of Ed’s more aggressive flyaways. “Are you hungry?” 

“Wow, I really have been away too long,” Ed says. “You didn’t used to ask _real_ stupid questions. Yeah, let’s go before the AASA decides they want another go at me.” 

Roy glances up. There’s a pair of airport security guards lingering uncomfortably several dozen yards away in the direction of the security checkpoint, radios in hand and very obviously watching them. Roy deliberately looks back down to Ed. “Did you make them strip search you this time?” 

Ed’s eyes gleam. “Why do you think I wore the fun underwear?”

It’s been a long enough day that Roy can’t help the downward flick of his gaze. Instead of the usual basking that comes from getting a reaction, though, Ed’s eyes narrow. Then he gives Roy another, entirely different kind of once-over, one Roy’s more used to seeing when Ed’s already got his shirt off. “You working hard or hardly working or what?” 

“I’m always hard at work,” Roy says, hearing too late how it sounds and having no choice but to play it straight. 

“Not hard enough,” Ed says consideringly. Sal shuffles a step back. The new guys really do have a tendency to be jumpy. 

Ed glances over Roy’s shoulder, and goes from vaguely ornery to happy and polite like some kind of cursed doll. “Hi Tiffany!” he chirps, letting go of Roy and stepping away. “You putting arsenic in his macchiatos yet?” 

“I’ve moved on to cyanide,” Tiffany says tonelessly, holding out a cup to Roy as he turns. “The arsenic was just making him stronger.” 

“Yeah, it’s like trying to poison toxic waste,” Ed commiserates. “Who’s the fresh meat? Lemme guess. Val?”

Roy turns just in time to see the look of utter despair cross the man’s otherwise impressively dead face. “Sal, actually,” he says.

“Cal picked up the wrong coffee mug,” Roy says.

“Cal met a stripper while he was in Phuket,” Tiffany says.

“They’re very happy together,” Trent says, slightly defensive. He and Cal are, self-described in the terminology that apparently denotes blood-sworn shield mates these days: ‘bros’. 

Roy sighs. “We sent them an edible arrangement.” 

“What? Jesus, I thought you liked Cal. At least send the guy a matching towel set or something. Dude took a bullet for you,” Ed says. “And who the fuck says edible arrangement? Like, out loud?” 

“I am unique in many things,” Roy tells him gravely. “Do you have all your luggage?” 

“Yeah, there’s my bag - I don’t check shit anymore, s’not worth it.” 

“You could try using the new one I gave you. It would probably stop your things getting confiscated for having traces of chemical explosives.”

 _“It’s not_ _explosives,”_ Ed exclaims for the hundredth time. 

“Of course it isn’t,” Roy indulges. “It just has the same chemical composition as explosives.”’

“Okay, I don’t care what their fifth grade chem teacher taught them, if you’re working security and biohazards you should know the fucking difference between C4 and _fertilizer,”_ Ed says, making his point with his finger. “I don’t _care_ if you can use one to make the other, there’s like eighteen missing steps of industrial process between the two and the sampler _does,_ actually, fucking tell you which is which -” 

“I’m sure the border agents love your chemical taxonomy lessons as much as I do,” Roy says. “Did you get arrested this time?” 

“Obviously,” Ed huffs, blowing some hair away from his face and stomping off towards the duffel left on the other side of Hal. “They didn’t get all the way to handcuffing me this time. Slackers.” 

Hal gives Ed a look that’s equal parts concerned and dubious, which is sweet if deeply misguided of him. “Don’t you have…” 

“I make them arrest me _before_ showing the dirty papers,” Ed says, hooking a foot through the strap of his duffel to drag it over. “They can treat me how they’d treat anyone else with a prosthesis.” 

Roy sighs. “You don’t just have a prosthesis, you have military-grade automail and a dozen knives.” 

“And a permit that says I can have all of them,” Ed agrees, heaving up his duffel. 

“Which you refuse to provide until after they’ve already handcuffed you.” 

Ed sticks his nose in the air as they head off towards the parking exit. “If they wanna go through all my shit so bad, they can find it on their own.”

“You just like the looks on their faces.” 

“It triples their paperwork and takes away their time to harass others,” Ed says. “When it takes eighteen guards to go through my laundry and beg me to bend over that’s eighteen guards who aren’t hassling some idiot who _isn’t_ as much fun in the strip search corner.” He tips his head back to give Roy a drippingly sweet smile. “Does it bother you?” 

It’s not whatever might’ve happened in the customs carousel that’s bothering Ed, then. The problem with CAIX is that there is just about an endless stream of possibilities for what could’ve put Ed in a mood, ranging from a businessman body-slamming a toddler with his rolling suitcase to a particularly mediocre airline sandwich. Roy just smiles back at Ed, bland and infuriating. “I know you can handle yourself.”

“Oh, don’t I just,” Ed says, treating Roy to another evil grin as the automatic doors part for his swagger. “Don’t worry. I don’t _like_ the looks on their faces. I _love_ them.”

“I’m sure they feel the same way about you.” Roy dons his coat properly as they step outside; Ed pebbles visibly all up his arms beside him, the brisk wind whipping his hair across his nose. Roy slides his hand up the strap of Ed’s duffel and lifts it off before Ed can protest, handing it off to Trent. “It’s a walk to the cars,” Roy tells him, because saying _put your jacket on_ will probably make Ed take his shirt off. “We parked in the free lot.” 

“Wow, did all my taxpayer abuse speeches finally make a dent?” Ed says, untying his jacket from around his waist as they set off. 

Roy refrains from offering his own coat, because it’s big enough that all that’ll get him is punched and it really is chilly out here. “I’ve always cared about how taxpayer dollars are allocated. They entrusted their money to the state, so it behooves us to use it responsibly.”

 _“Wow,”_ Ed repeats, glancing back a couple inches to the left of Roy’s shoulder; judging by his expression, Tiffany is making a rude gesture behind his back.

“Well said, sir,” Mal says, impressively straight-faced. She’d been working very hard over the past year to round out Roy’s dreams of a matched-set team by ousting Tiffany from her position as aide. Roy mostly leaves them to it. It keeps them sharp. 

Sal starts to slow a little when they approach the SUVs, doing what might be called ‘balking’ in someone other than a six-foot-five, two-hundred-pound special forces operative. 

“Corporal?” Tiffany says. 

“Section Twenty-Three,” Sal says fearfully, glancing between Tiffany, the cars, and Ed. 

In Riza’s specially prepared Security Protocol Manual, Section Twenty-Three mandates that every potentially armed passenger traveling with the principal must be subject to a cavity search before entering the secured vehicle. And Ed had recently admitted to carrying an alarming number of knives that comes across in a very haha-not-joking way. 

Judging by the look on his face, Sal has either heard all the Ed-specific rumors flying around circles with much higher security clearance than his, or he’s picked up on the fact that a man a full foot shorter than him can in fact beat him into traction without breaking a sweat. Either way, Roy privately adds a few points in his favor for intel collection and/or situational awareness, but deducts just as many for recoiling from a losing fight. “Do we really...” 

“Yes,” Trent says, because it’s a time-honored tradition to haze the new guy. He grimaces very convincingly. “We usually draw straws.”

“I don't actually have a dozen knives,” Ed says helpfully. “There’s only, like, three.” 

“That’s a lie,” Trent informs Sal. 

“You get a prize if you find all of them,” Tiffany adds. 

“And a paycut if you don’t,” Mal says.

Sal looks between the three of them warily. “What’s the prize?” 

“A knife,” Ed says, then frowns and adds, “Not one of mine.”

Sal stares at them for a couple moments longer before he starts to frown suspiciously, having seemingly tapped into long-repressed memories of getting fucked with in Basic. Roy adds another few points to his favor. It usually takes the new recruits a little longer to start catching on. The only slightly exaggerated rumors of what Roy and his team have gotten up to in the past has primed every newcomer to believe just about anything. Now that Ed’s back in town there will probably be a couple of new scandals to add to the pool by week’s end.

“Do I get to pick what kind of knife?” Sal says, and now the man’s fishing. They just might keep him around.

“Depends on how quickly you find them,” Mal says. 

“Roy’s the current record-holder,” Ed says conversationally, “And he wasn’t even looking for ‘em. Anyway, I don’t know why you guys even bother, it’s not like I _need_ a weapon to kill Roy. His muscles have been practically liquefying since he got promoted to desk duty.”

Tiffany sighs and draws her jacket around herself tighter. It’d been warmer when they arrived. “Do try to avoid making statements that qualify as what protocol defines as a ‘direct threat to the principal’s person’.”

“Wasn’t a threat, just a statement of fact.”

“Said in a threatening manner.”

“That’s just how my face is.”

“Please stop flirting with my aide, Edward.”

“Don’t worry,” Ed says, trying for reassurance and largely failing due to the fact that he’s physically incapable of addressing Roy in public without deep sarcasm lining every word. “Fuck what protocol says, you’re still the only one who gets to hog-tie me and play twenty questions with a bag over my head.”

“We’re going to have to try and recite this conversation verbatim in our eventual subpoena,” Trent tells Sal. “Just so you know. It’s not recommended you take notes, but we are supposed to try and remember to the best of our ability.” 

Hal, who is team leader and is possessed of an unfortunate cocktail of both paternalism and empathy that tends to keep him out of these little hazing exercises, has a little brother named Sam who bears an uncanny resemblance to Sal. “Just do your best,” he tells Sal. “It’s a delicate balance between not remembering enough to perjure yourself on the stand, and retaining just enough to write a very profitable tell-all book in three years.”

“No one actually writes those books themselves,” Mal points out.

Sal glances between them all dubiously. “I don’t think anyone would be interested in the Fullmetal Alchemist’s sexual preferences,” he says, which goes to show the deep and utter myopia of men who’re either too secure or not nearly secure enough in their own heterosexuality.

Tiffany barks out a laugh. “Oh, Corporal. Can we keep him, sir? I promise to feed him and walk him and pick up his shit every single day.”

“Hey,” Sal protests.

“Work with him on his sociology insights and I’ll think about it,” Roy replies, and decides it’s another net zero credit-debit balance. Demonstrable blindspots aside, at least he doesn’t have to worry about this particular member of his team trying to poach Ed. Fucking _Brad_. “I would like to actually get in the car before nightfall, so why don’t we look to Section Eighty-Nine and call it a day. All the exceptions that should be made for Edward are enumerated in Subsection Four.”

All he gets is a sweet smile and a mildly murderous glint in Tiffany’s eye. “But sir. Colonel Hawkeye struck down Subsection Four in the most recent version,” she says. “It was never binding even before it was removed, considering it was only there because you bribed the desk aide into letting you pencil in your revisions.”

“I resent the implication that I would ever compromise my professional ethics for personal gratification,” Roy says.

“I cannot _believe_ you got that out with a straight face,” Ed marvels. 

Sal now looks less wary about his immediate circumstances and more concerned with the future of Amestris as helmed by its incontrovertible best and brightest. “So we aren’t going to…” 

Tiffany sighs again. “Given that we have already allowed Mr. Elric to physically ambush the General without sweeping him beforehand, it’s a little late to be doing cavity searches now.”

Subsection Four lives on in spirit if not in name. “Are we dropping you off?” Roy asks Tiffany, seeing as he’s going the fuck home, her car is still at Command and they’re splitting off into two vehicles anyway. 

“If you don’t need me for anything further.” 

Roy toasts her with his macchiato and glances at Ed. “There’ll be food in the house, unless you want something specific.”

Ed looks around at Hal and the others. “You guys want burgers or something? He’s paying.” 

“I could eat,” Tiffany allows, in a tone that says she remembers that Roy doesn’t say no to anything when it comes to Ed’s food habits and kicks off a round of emphatic nodding. 

Roy sighs and kisses his opportunity to use the work credit card goodbye, allowing Trent to open the car door for him. “Burgers it is.”

“Back seat, wow,” Ed says, crowding in after Roy and immediately climbing over him in casually deliberate clumsiness. “When are they getting you a carseat like a real boy?” 

“When I - _oof -_ earn it,” Roy says through his teeth, paper cup jerked high over his head to keep it out of range of Ed’s boots. “Make yourself comfortable, why don’t you.” 

“I will, thanks.” Ed plucks the macchiato out of Roy’s hand, takes a gulp and makes the same face he always does, setting it back in a cupholder instead of returning it to Roy; one day Roy will tell him there’s milk in it. “So how bad did you fuck Amestris while I was out?” 

“It’s still standing,” Roy says, instead of making any statements about how arguably it’s him getting fucked. Ed’s settled up against the other door, and hasn’t kicked his legs up and tried to pulverize Roy’s kneecaps with his automail or made him deal with the boots. Is it _Roy_ he’s upset with? When did he find the time? “How was Xing?” 

“Better than here in almost every conceivable way,” Ed says immediately. “I did miss burgers though. And beets. And spreadable cheese. And sauerkraut. And that shitty rose petal candy they sell at every larek here.”

“It seems as though you’ve been very deprived,” Roy says. 

“Ah, Imperial hospitality, you know how it is. They throw you in a moldy barn and make you eat rats and drink rainwater.” 

“I suppose you at least had Alphonse to suffer with you.” 

Ed brightens up, as he always does, and the continuing saga of Al’s study abroad carries them onto the interstate. Roy’s heard most of this through the phone already, but in person Ed talks with his hands and does a lot of nose-scrunching and adds details he wouldn’t when he’s facetiming Roy from his brother’s wife’s living room. He hitches his left leg up onto the seat and turns to face Roy fully as he talks, playing with the gold chain around his neck, looking trashy and tanned in his track pants and horrible shirt covered in graffiti skulls and weird swirling curlicues. He looks like a Hollywood version of a trailer park meth dealer. Roy is, he reflects not for the first time, extremely fucked. 

“So that’s why Mei’s banned from every casino in the Zhejiang metro area. Oh, _and_ \- I got you something,” Ed concludes, in a tone that has Roy steeling himself to get a live centipede tipped into his lap. “I saw it and thought, like, _immediately_ of you.” 

The gifts Ed has given him so far include skull-printed underwear, several t-shirts with a variety of borderline treasonous slogans and a lighter shaped like a penis that makes you flick the balls to produce a flame. Roy has considered getting a special display shelf set up, but decided to hold off until he has something to match the end-piece of a once-radioactive chunk of melted glass that Ed brought back from the time he and Alphonse contained a partial reactor meltdown. 

Roy can’t imagine what kind of thing he’ll be presented with now, but it can’t be very large. Ed rummages around in his pockets, arching distractingly as he does so, and produces something he hides in his hand until Roy obediently puts his own out. 

It’s a keychain. Attached to the keychain is a piece of… leather, and wood, and some string, tortured beyond mortal imagination into a hateful effigy of what can just about be identified as an animal. Its ears - or possibly horns - stick out at right angles from its misshapen head. Its braying mouth and maddened, bulging eyes cry out for the death of the artist. It is probably, if viewed through an appropriately cracked lens by a sufficiently optimistic Cubist, meant to be a horse. 

Ed is slowly sliding down the seat in silent hysterics. “It’s a _,”_ he gasps. “It’s a. It’s a _mustang. Get it?”_

“Thank you,” Roy tells him solemnly. “I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it. And, ideally, never will again.” 

“Your _face,”_ Ed wheezes, indicating that he will be unavailable for adult conversation for some time. 

Roy sighs and unzips the inner pocket of his coat, retrieving his keys and starting to work the keychain onto them. The kinds of emotional attachments he’s making in his old age really are unfortunate. “It’s kind of you to spare a thought for me in your time abroad.” 

Ed’s jaw juts out a little at that, and now he’s irritated again, even through the tapering giggles. Roy spools through the past minute of conversation, because up until that point, Ed had seemed to be well on his way to forgetting whatever it is that put him in a mood in the first place; Roy’s circling around to the conclusion that it was perhaps something he did. 

“Spared you loads of thoughts,” Ed says, tone skirting pointedness. “Tons of ‘em.”

Is this the bundle of abandonment issues Maes keeps ribbing Roy about? He thought the man was fucking with him, but maybe Ed had actually managed to be lonely while chugging baiju mixers and passive-aggressively sexting Xingese alkhestrists in the footnotes of his review papers.

“I never doubted that you did?” Roy says. Is he supposed to express some sort of sincere emotion here? Mal’s rapidly blinking warnings in Morse code at him through the rearview mirror. This is a _travesty_. “I, ahh, missed you?”

Ed laughs right in Roy’s face. “You tryin’ to grease me up or something? What, did you accidentally run over Al’s cat? Cause if you did, there’s nothing I or God or anyone can do to save you, so good fucking luck, buddy.”

Oh, thank fuck, emotional openness was the wrong call. “Alphonse’s cat is still alive and well,” Roy says.

“Then what the fuck,” Ed waves a hand at Roy, managing to whack him hard enough in the shoulder to bruise, “was that all about.”

“Something I will have to pay Maes back for,” Roy says darkly.

“Hughes can get in line, you still owe me seventy-one favors.”

Did he miss an _anniversary_ or something? Does Ed suddenly care about anniversaries? He can be easy as hell to please, but often in ways that are utterly baffling to Roy; as soon as he feels he’s got a grip on the things Ed wants, it changes or turns out to have been something else entirely. This isn’t helped by the fact that Ed’s well aware of this and considers it a perk, because he likes being difficult as much as he likes being easy.

Roy considers the odds on the kind of reception if he puts a hand on Ed’s thigh. He reaches for the Kachovski briefcase instead. 

“Well, I suppose I can start paying the debt now. I have a gift for you myself,” he says, keying in the code and pressing his thumbprint to the lock pad to extract the tablet. “Though nothing so artistically enriching, I’m afraid.”

Ed sits up immediately at the sight of it, scooting over into Roy’s space and grabbing with both hands. “For _me?_ Aw, sugartits, you _shouldn’t_ have.” 

Technically he’s right, because anyone with Ed’s security clearances has to get them re-issued after spending more than forty days in another country. Roy has some leeway, though, and in cases like these the Fullmetal Alchemist arguably has more. And if it does come out - well, for the people who matter, all this will show is the former loose cannon powerhouse safely chewing through theory like a good boy. Not anything to worry about. 

Ed stays pressed up against Roy as he swipes impatiently through the PROPERTY OF AMESTRIS STATE MILITARY, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESSORS WILL BE EXTREMELY SHOT start screens, types Roy’s username into the login and then huffs when the password doesn’t work. “You know those get switched out on the regular,” Roy says amusedly, taking the tablet back when Ed sticks it out at him. 

“Your passwords are the least original shit on earth,” Ed sulks, blowing some hair out of his face. “I’ve guessed right before.” 

“Don’t tell that to IT.” Roy tilts the screen so Ed can see him type in the current password; a little bad infosec has saved their luck more than once, when having to go around official channels. “Here. It’s not networked, don’t flip the switch back on unless in a cleared facility. The project’s the only thing on here.” 

“Yay, secrets,” Ed says sarcastically, but he snatches the tablet back and pries the stylus out of the holder without hesitation. He pages greedily through the file tree, head bent, braid trailing over his shoulder to almost brush the screen as he taps open the summary document and starts to read. 

Roy sits back, using the motion to unobtrusively resettle his arm around Ed’s back. It doesn’t get him shrugged off, so he sits back and and quietly breathes in the scent of Ed’s hair. Ed _was_ working as an alchemical consultant in Xing, but mostly what he was doing was visiting Alphonse, studying alkahestry and being unavailable when various generals and ministers called in order to make his de facto retirement stick. Roy counted on him being bored, at least when it comes to shop: Ed wouldn’t have been working on anything too advanced in Xing, not under Imperial watch, and when he’d left Amestris, at least, he’d been more than a little worn out. Burned out, maybe, inasmuch as that can apply to Ed. 

But six months is a long time, and Roy’s glad to see it hasn’t stuck. Ed’s jiggling the stylus absentmindedly in his hand, chewing on his lip as his eyes flicker down the pages of scanned-in notes in his usual unearthly speedreading. He keeps at it as they enter the city proper and pull up to some restaurant of Tiffany’s choosing; “Carbs,” Roy orders for both of them, handing over one of his non-work credit cards to Hal. “More is more.” 

Ed only resurfaces when Hal reenters the car with two laden bags of food and the smell of hot fries starts creeping over everything like mustard gas. Roy reaches for the tablet as Ed reaches for the food, but Ed just automatically clutches it to his chest and sticks the stylus behind his ear as he shoves a hand into a bag and roots around until he finds the fries. He looks thoughtful but not alarmed as he stuffs his fistful of potato in his face, which is a sign that Roy’s judged the Kachovski project correctly, from what he’d been able to make of it. 

“So,” Roy says, moving the food bags closer to Ed and sitting back in his own seat. “How concerned should I be?” 

“Mmmmm eh,” Ed says, in his typically incisive yet eloquent way. “Fher’s’a lotta, ‘ike,” here he swallows prodigiously, “lotta assumptions bein’ made in here to get to their proposed proof of concept. Whatever this got skived off of,” he wiggles the tablet, “S’not from research notes, s’from, like, a project proposal. Half of this reads like it came off a powerpoint deck - what, did Hughes’s guys break into some middle management filing cabinet or something?” 

Hughes’s people have been frolicking through the beautiful fields of Drachman digital encryption on various networks, accounts and acquired devices, of which the Kachovski notes - courtesy of one Dima Kachovski, alchemathematician, PhD - are but one result. Roy waves away the providence as immaterial. “The fact that it’s being proposed at all is the concern. We need to get an idea of stages of development as well as a timeline.” 

Ed snorts. “If it’s even possible at all.” 

“Is it?” 

“Well, I dunno, I haven’t done it yet. There’s no arrays here though, they’re not even anywhere _near_ that yet, and what they’re proposing - like, they want to create these theoretical no-go zones, yeah? Where alchemy doesn’t work. Which clearly somebody knows is _possible,_ ‘cuz it happened, but they don’t know how, ‘cuz they’re stuck on ‘do you need alchemy to negate alchemy’. Like, they get that it’s gotta be a field effect, but if you’re doing that with an array it’ll cancel itself out, so at worst you get a disrupted reaction, max.” 

“Which is acknowledged in the first four pages,” Roy says. “Out of sixty-six.” 

“Well yeah, Drachmans ain’t dumb. They decided to lean into that, go for pulses, not fields, and do one-off disruptions - like, grenades, I guess. Spikes that can disrupt an alchemical reaction in progress. But like - to even get that far, they need to quantify a looooot of shit. Like, this is fully in wishlist territory. I dunno anyone who’s even working on this kinda thing and I’m in array design and alchemathematical theory papers up to my ass.” 

“Which is why you were the first one to consult,” Roy says, as smoothly as he can get away with without Ed giving him the _stop trying to be smooth_ look. _“Is_ it possible to create this kind of effect without alchemy?” 

“Just told you, I dunno. Maybe they’ll get to thinking out loud ‘bout mechanical field generation or something in the back half’a this, who knows. I mean, if you really wanted to, you could dump power in an array until it overloaded itself, but then you’re getting into the realm of bullshit physics, and that’s as likely to blow up in your face as it is to actually do the thing you want. You might as well just use an actual grenade at that point,” Ed says, back to rummaging in the food bag one-handed. “Also, whoever wrote this didn’t wanna do it.”

Roy hums with interest. Tiffany makes a quiet but comprehensively disgusted noise at how very obviously he’s enjoying himself. “Oh? Why do you say that?”

“You don’t gotta be a genius to float hypotheses about pulling this off. Sure, most of the ideas they’d come up with wouldn’t work because half this shit is tied up in…” He makes the vaguely loopy gesture by his temple that is his go-to for ‘insight granted by having your mind wrenched inside-out by the Gate’. “But even if you don’t know the rules you’re supposed to be playing by, you can still come up with a whole lot of bullshit that _might_ work. And they’re not even doing that.” 

“They might simply be hedging their bets.”

“Not at this stage. This is the point where you’re supposed to be flinging spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, and then you can - hey, there’s that rose candy in here!” 

“There was a larek by the restaurant,” Hal says from up front, sounding embarrassed about it. Hal’s lucky all his excess paternal feelings are so explicitly parental. Roy could really stand to live without another Brad. 

“Aw, thanks, man,” Ed says happily, a little indistinct from all the rustling as he shucks wrappers one-handed. “Anyway. This is a pile of dog farts, practically speaking. Nobody’s doing hard R&D offa this.” Ed waggles the tablet in one hand as he jams candy in his mouth. “Not for them to have a real timeline. Or like, _any_ implementation scheme.”

“It does make one wonder how they managed to acquire the funding that they did. The R&D accounting sheets we’ve gotten our hands on have indicated a great deal of interest in the project.”

“Well, yeah, ‘cuz even if they barely find jack shit, that still could be enough of an edge to totally fuck our shop here.” Ed clacks the candy against the back of his teeth before crunching in with a loud obnoxious crack. “Like, yeah, this is a problem - now that everybody and their auntie knows alchemy _can_ get shut down, everybody’s just gonna keep throwing shit at this until they find what works. But it’s not a _problem-_ problem. Or at least it isn’t.” He gestures with the tablet again. “Yet.”

Roy mulls it over. Ed’s not telling him much of anything new, when it comes to the big picture, but he supposes it’s nice to know Drachma won’t have anything like what the homunculi unleashed on them during the Promised Day. He hadn’t seen any arrays or even equations in the notes when he’d read through them himself, which is a decent indicator of where an alchemy project is; if there were, he would’ve waited to give Ed the notes until _after_ they’ve made it home for dinner. Among other things. 

Which are all likely still in the cards. It’s probably inaccurate to say Ed’s forgotten about whatever thing he was upset about, but he’s not thinking about it anymore. 

The considering look he fixes on Roy, however, says things are not yet entirely in the clear. “My present was better,” Ed says. “You didn’t even give me real math.”

Roy raises his eyebrows. “You’re right. Highly sensitive classified research lifted directly from the internal servers of a hostile foreign nation pales in comparison to a novelty keychain.”

“Damn straight.”

“Forgive me, then,” Roy says, judging it still too soon for a hand to the thigh but definitely no longer as distant a prospect. He weighs his options, then moves the bag of food so it’s less between them but still in Ed’s eyeline. Then he reaches over and draws Ed’s braid over his shoulder, letting it drag through his hand before he reaches up to smooth back escapist strands. They’ll be at the house soon, after all, and Roy doesn’t want Ed to get _too_ distracted. 

“How would you do it, then?” he asks, tilting his head just enough so that it’s like he’s looking down and Ed’s looking up at him, because what’s the good of knowing each other’s buttons by heart if you don’t mash them like a toddler at an arcade. “Feel free to include the math.” 

Ed gives him a look that says he knows exactly what Roy’s doing, but it’s not like that’s ever stopped them before. “Cute. Do you think you can keep up?” 

“I know I’ll enjoy it either way,” Roy says, and smiles. He smiles wider when Ed’s mouth half-hitches in return, pleased and pissed at Roy, showing him teeth like Ed couldn’t help it even if he wanted to. “Do your worst.” 

Tiffany mimes some discreet gagging motions in the front seat. Roy ignores her. 


	2. Chapter 2

They drop Tiffany off, and from there it’s not too far to the house that Roy apparently can’t be a General without. It’s far too big for one, but since Madam Christmas’s promotion gift was sourcing a thoroughly background checked and leveraged housekeeper, Roy has no choice but to shack up there and endure his sisters’ ideas of interior decorating. 

Though he’s fairly sure Ed likes the place, judging by the insults he levels every time he shows up. “Ah, this old dump,” he contributes as they pull up the drive. He _is_ in a better mood now, because ranting brings him joy or at least bleeds off the violent urges that collect in his little blond head the way gravity collects rainwater.

“Still standing,” Roy repeats as the garage door rattles open to let them inside. 

Hal and Trent set off to sweep the house while Mal disarms the security system and Sal dutifully carries in Ed’s duffel and the secure briefcase, laptop bag and various office debris that washes up with Roy at the end of any given workday. Alphonse’s cat - installed in Roy’s house by Ed, fed by the housekeeper, hates everything under the sun except, presumably, Alphonse - glares suspiciously down at them from its usual perch in the foyer window. Ed makes _ksksksks_ noises at it and stretches a hand out as though he’s going to reach up ten feet, which makes the cat flatten its ears and hiss. 

“Aw, she remembers me,” Ed says happily, prying his boots off. 

“She does that to everybody,” Roy points out. 

“Nah, she doesn’t put her ears all the way back for me. Look.” 

Roy can’t see any difference between this particular fanged grimace and any other, but he knows better than to say so. The cat hisses again, casually hateful, before pointedly turning away from them. 

Ed purses his mouth. “Wow, you managed to make her hate you even more,” he says, presumably in direct translation of how the cat’s been greeting Roy every day these past six months. “Didn’t know that was possible. What the fuck have you been doing to her?” 

“Nothing,” Roy defends, because he’d given up trying to tempt the thing with catnip and inane toys and feathers on sticks eventually. “She’s been getting sixty dollar farm-to-table cat food twice daily and I still can’t leave my plate at the table or she’ll desecrate it.” 

“That’s because you don’t eat right,” Ed says, with heavy overtones of _unlike me, who has identified ‘satanically possessed combine harvester’ as the one correct way to eat._ “And she knows crime makes food taste better.” 

Roy sighs as he shuts the hall closet on his coat. “You taught her to steal my food on purpose, didn’t you.” 

“Nah. That was all Al,” Ed says, very close, and Roy turns as a hand sets on his collar and Ed kisses him. 

Ed kisses slow. Roy’s always surprised by it, is always a little thrown by the deliberateness in Ed’s physicality in general. He really shouldn’t be, given it’s Ed’s brutality in a fight that makes him so careful otherwise: Ed’s strong, and he knows he’s strong, and he knows the kind of damage he can do. He’s not exactly graceful, doesn’t manage not to knock Roy with elbows and knees both intentionally and otherwise. He’s never exactly been ‘gentle’, even with the people he cared about, but he’s never careless with them either.

A lot can be read into the intentional way he touches Roy, when he lays his weight on him, when he squeezes Roy’s waist and pulls on Roy’s shirt to tug him down. When Ed bites, it’s on purpose. 

Roy takes it, because he loves nothing more than a well-delegated task.

“Hey asshole,” Ed mutters into his mouth. “Don’t be lazy.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Roy murmurs, as behind them what sounds like Sal re-enters the front hall only to take an abrupt about-face back out of it. Roy doesn’t bother to turn; Sal will go find the others and have his first traumatized breakdown or whatever and they will explain to him how it’s generally a bad idea to stay anywhere near Ed when he’s inside Roy’s house. 

Ed drags his hands through Roy’s hair in retaliation, fingers catching in the gel and making him pull a face against Roy’s mouth at the feel. “Ugh, you always start using the crackly stuff when I’m gone.” 

“It holds better,” Roy justifies, sliding his palm around Ed’s waist until he touches the ridge of the knife that lives at the small of Ed’s back. 

“It’s gross.” The fingers of both of Ed’s hands brush against each other, and Roy can feel the static tingling of Ed contemplating a transmutation without fully committing himself to an array. 

“Keep that up and you’re going to make me go bald,” Roy warns. 

“God, I fucking wish,” Ed says, making fists in the back of Roy’s shirt instead. “Maybe then we’d finally stop having to dump Drano down the pipes every fucking time one of us showers. How the fuck do you shed _more_ than I do with only a fifth of the hair?” 

“Not all of us can be gifted with the indomitable Xerxian hairline.”

“Ooh, call me exotic next,” Ed deadpans. “What did that one Times piece call me? Flower of the desert?” 

“You read that one?” 

“Are you kidding me? Al had it clipped, laminated and framed. I had to stare at it hanging over his toilet every time I pissed for half a year.” 

Roy decides not to mention the cut-out excerpt that compared Ed’s mouth to a harem girl’s carefully folded between the pages of his copy of Meta-Analyses of Bovine Husbandry Practices: Vol 14, saved for the days when he’s feeling particularly randy and pathetic. He tsks. “Censorship these days. You’d think it’d be easier to get ‘barely literate hillbilly’ past the editors.” 

“Yeah, I think Mattel sued the shit outta someone for calling me a paramilitary Barbie that one time and now they all just have to make do with mildly racist sexual harassment.” Ed follows by sealing his mouth over Roy’s again, towing him down to right where it suits him by the collar of his shirt.

Roy happily occupies himself with a reintroduction to every single one of the knives hidden on Ed’s person. There’s a reason why he always beats the ‘guess how many weapons I’m wearing’ contests in the office that are the Amestrisan military’s version of ‘how many jellybeans are in this jar’. There’s a saucy little tac knife secreted in a holster precariously close to Ed’s groin. It’d be next to impossible to reach quickly in a fight, which means Ed dressed up for the occasion.

“You said something about fun underwear,” Roy murmurs, recalling with sudden mission critical clarity what Ed told him practically first thing off the plane. 

“Not like you deserve it,” Ed mumbles, but opens his mouth to Roy’s anyway. Roy tastes the chemical sweetness of rose candy, feels the hitch of Ed’s breath in his chest, and that’s sweet too, that whenever Ed teases Roy he teases himself with it. Roy lets himself dissolve into the feeling, Ed’s body hard and warm under his hands, in his house, not to leave again for a good long while.

Naturally Al’s cat starts making some sort of horrible noise in the background like she’s choking to death, carrying on Alphonse’s favorite past-time of finding the worst possible moments to interrupt them during sex. Ed immediately makes a distressed noise in response, drawing back confusedly. “Let’s go eat,” Roy says hastily, because it’s the best shot at getting them out of the hall and distracting Ed from whatever medical emergency the cat is having. She’s Alphonse’s cat; surely she can manage herself. 

It turns out that Ed also thinks the cat can take care of herself, because he takes Roy releasing his mouth as a sign that he should go for his throat instead. Roy considers just doing this in the front hall, feline soundtrack be damned, but much as he’s raring to go, Ed has pulled the ‘I’m too hungry to come’ card mid-sex before. This is behavior Roy occasionally finds charming, but not when he has his pants down and his fingers up Ed’s ass. Sometimes a pre-emptive strike is the better part of valor. 

“Ed,” Roy reminds him. “Food.” 

The cat chooses that moment to turn her death rattles into a yowl, which at least makes Ed twitch and unstick his mouth. Roy’s probably going to have to put concealer on his neck tomorrow morning. Ed settles back down off his toes with a mutinous expression, automail heel clicking against the hardwood even through his sock, and Hal chooses then to demonstrate the remarkable instincts and sense of timing one hones from years of running deep-cover ops in the heart of enemy territory. He reappears with the soggy paper bag of burgers the moment Ed disentangles his limbs from Roy’s, holds the bag out to Ed like a matador to a bull and snatches his fingers back so he won’t lose them the moment Ed catches hold. 

The second the bag is secure Hal beats a hasty tactical retreat. This is why he’s the team leader. Man really knows how to get in and out of an active warzone.

Of course when presented with food, Ed forgets all about Roy, descending like a plague of locusts onto the coffee table and sitting directly on the floor to pig into his burger. Roy goes to pour himself a glass of Everclear and unload the various detritus of his workday where it belongs before Ed starts mauling him on the couch and he gets his security badge clip stabbing through his kidney. 

Ed gets a juicebox, because open-lid containers are a no-no in his hands anywhere outside the kitchen. This is a policy instated by Alphonse that has somehow migrated to Roy’s house, and also probably a sign that Alphonse has more of a say than is healthy in their relationship. Between that and the stuffed animals Alphonse had solemnly gifted him as housewarming - pastel pink, pastel blue, pastel peach and pastel yellow, all cats, all whiskery and wide-eyed with mad plastic intensity - Roy’s pretty sure Elana the housekeeper thinks there’s a lot more weird daddy shit involved in his and Ed’s relationship than the current very comfortable zero. Frankly, if anyone’s the daddy around here, it’s Alphonse. Or at least his cat. 

After the first blood-frenzy has passed and Ed can eat food like a civilized person, he starts making eyes at Roy that could either be construed as horny or moderately homicidal. Usually that just means that Ed remembers the last time Roy pulled his hair, but with how touchy he’s been since getting home, it might actually be as murderous as it appears on the surface. Roy polishes off the rest of his drink filled with only a mild sense of impending doom.

Ed slurps from his juicebox, then eyes Roy’s cup. “If they haven’t seen the kinda shit you consider a decent alcohol-food pairing, no wonder people keep thinking trying to poison you will get them anywhere.”

Roy shrugs and sets his glass down to start unbuttoning his shirt further, which makes Ed raise an eyebrow until he pulls it down enough to reveal the array tattoo. “Oh, _sick,”_ Ed says appreciatively, shoving the last two fries into his mouth before hustling over and pushing Roy’s hands aside to get a better look. “Poison filter?” 

“Nothing as intricate as the designs you see in Imperial circles,” Roy says with a modesty that makes Ed blow a raspberry with his mouth still half-full. “But I had a free weekend and some access to relevant biological texts, and found it an interesting project.”

“Yeah, Ling can totally still get drunk.”

“It still lets a decent buzz come through,” Roy admits, settling back into the couch. 

Ed follows him down, still studying the array on his chest, poking at one of the particularly offensive 30 degree angles in Roy’s circle. “Sure, when you’re taking shots of fucking _rubbing alcohol.”_

“An acceptable casualty in times of strife, I assure you.”

Ed rolls his eyes and leans a bit closer to get a better look. Roy wonders what the probability of success would be for getting Ed to lick it. “You totally got this to swing your dick at those Drachman embassy parties, didn’t you.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Roy demurs, blinking wide and concerned the way he does whenever another attache slides under the banquet table gurgling. “I simply have a very high tolerance. It must be all the Xing in my genes.”

“Uh huh,” Ed says, in the sarcastic and distrustful tone he has that passes for fond. “Must be all the Xing in Ling too, keeping him all un-murdered.” 

“Where’s his?” Roy asks, setting a hand on Ed’s thigh.

“Hip, over the vein,” Ed says, tapping the spot on himself, just outwards of his navel. “So it’s harder -”

“- to cut without doing more damage, yes. Though that’s more of a precaution against kidnappings.” 

“Yeah, you don’t need to care when they just want to kill you.” Ed traces a blunt brown finger around the outer edge of the array. “Xing’s on another level with this shit. You ever heard of Gu? They get like a box of poisonous snakes and centipedes and scorpions and shit, then distill the toxins from the last motherfucker standing after it eats everything else. Nearly took Ling down, and he crowdsourced his array from like twenty alkhestrists and _Mei_. When she was, like, four and a half days post-partum. So you know that shit’s potent.” 

That would have been Ed’s first week in Xing, which in retrospect probably explains why he’d been incommunicado for longer than even Roy expected him to be given the birth of his nephew. “You did say she was finding a second wind as a new mother,” Roy says, impressively straight-faced considering Ed has moved on to lightly gnawing on the exposed skin around the array. Completely of his own accord, too. Roy does love it when victories are handed to him without a single modicum of effort invested on his end.

Ed snorts into his clavicle. “You really wanna talk about diapers and psychological warfare _now_?”

“Hmm,” Roy says as he reaches up to slip off the tie at the end of Ed’s braid, digging his fingers in to let all of that hair drape down over his neck and shoulders. “You make an excellent point.”

Ed grins, shark-like, his teeth still set firmly in Roy’s chest, which creates an interesting pinching sensation. He digs in a little harder just to make sure Roy’s paying attention before releasing him and pushing further into the couch, dipping in for a kiss. Ed advances slowly, mouth wet and unhurried, bringing one knee on the couch at a time as he drags a hand down Roy’s chest; this bodes well for Roy, because while Ed is always worth the effort Roy definitely doesn’t feel like doing all the work today. Ed’s a charming little monster when he can be bothered to top, and it looks like six months of phone sex have left him sufficiently motivated to give Roy a break. 

So of course, the second Ed swings a leg over Roy’s hips, every single one of his phones goes off. 

Roy thunks his head back against the couch and groans. “Fuck,” Ed says irritably, sitting back unhelpfully on Roy’s legs as Roy twists around to grope for the nearest phone. “Did you declare war before you clocked out for the day or something?”

“You know I don’t clock out,” Roy grunts, catching the edge of his work phone and dragging it towards him. “That’s why we’re having this prob- _lem.”_

Roy stares at the phone in total brain death for so long that Ed actually says “Roy?” with genuine concern. He grabs Roy’s wrist, curling in over the phone to see what’s on the screen. “What do we - _oh_ my god.” 

The messages - still arriving - are all photographs. They are all photographs of Ed. More specifically, they are all photographs of Ed in what’s clearly a tiny airplane bathroom, sticking his tongue out at the camera and mauling his current outfit into increasingly exposing configurations. 

Ed slowly topples off Roy, landing on the floor, laughing so hard it’s almost soundless. “Of course,” he manages, high pitched. “Of course - they only come through - _now -”_

“You were sexting me,” Roy says, voice coming out blank with whiplash. He’d been expecting an alert about a Drachman flyby in their airspace or something, not 4K snapshots of Ed squeezing his pecs together like a sorority girl. It is a glaring reminder that Ed keeps a group chat that’s just him and every single one of Roy’s cell numbers and that he abuses the hell out of it. “In _airplane mode?”_

“I bought, the shitty, airplane, wifi,” Ed wheezes. “I thought - they were sending - the whole time -”’

There are photos of Ed with his tongue out and his shirt bunched up over his pecs, photos with his hand down his pants, photos where he’s biting his lip and pinching one of his own nipples. And they _keep coming._ “How many of these _are_ there?” 

“I thought you were ignoring me,” Ed gasps, burgundy with laughter. “So I kinda - kept going -” 

“Are you - is this _upside down?”_ Roy stares at the next one. “Did you do a handstand _on the_ _toilet?”_

Ed only laughs harder. Roy swipes through in a daze, thumb moving automatically; Ed’s doing the splits in more than one of these, using the walls and sink and toilet paper niches in increasingly death-defying ways that truly show off human ingenuity when it comes to capturing one’s nipples on camera. The fun underwear is definitely present: it’s one of those trendy brands with the logo splashed in big tickertape letters across the waistband, gaudy and overdone and detracting not an ounce from Ed’s appeal. 

It’s all a little too surreal for the pictures to be wholly sexy, but the thought of it, Ed locking himself in the bathroom to pull his shirt up for Roy, getting himself excited, unable to wait for the plane to land - _that_ , Roy can feel. _That_ gets Roy like hot liquor rolling down his spine.

His gaze lingers on one of the last photos - Ed leaning against the wall, phone held in the mirror, leering and resting his cheek on his knee with his legs in a vertical split. Roy sets his phone aside with a deliberate click and looks down at Ed, who’s sprawled out on his elbows and grinning up at him. “Well?” Ed says. “Whaddaya think?”

Roy lets his eyes travel slow down Ed’s body, from his bitten lip to the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He had been happy to let Ed top, but faced with this kind of performance - well. There’s only one appropriate course of action now.

He digs into his pocket and pulls out his gloves. He watches Ed’s face go hungry as he tugs them on, Ed’s breath visibly catching, his whole body tensing like a dog going on point. “I think,” Roy says slowly, deliberately, “you’ve earned a treat.” 

“Oh _fuck_ yeah,” Ed breathes, and they’re on. 

-o-

“So,” Hal says. “Here’s the thing. Once we clear the house, our job inside is done.”

They’re in the pantry over by the garage, arranged in a Teaching Moment circle for the benefit of Sal. Mal’s already broken into the cheese sticks, because she’s incorrigible, but Hal’s holding off on snacking until they can read in Sal. It’s the kid’s first night with Elric back at the house and those always tend to be - well. Roughest. 

“Isn’t operational policy that so long as we’re in proximity to the principal, our job is never done?” Sal says. Case in point. The kid’s still playing things by the book. They’re going to have to break him out of that habit soon.

“When the principal and his partner are the two deadliest combat-trained alchemists in Amestrian military history, we can afford to give them a little privacy. If they run into a threat that they can’t handle, there’s no way in hell that any of us are going to make much of a difference.” 

Sal goes a little pale at that. “Then why - ?”

“We’re really here as a formality, and so the General can delegate tasks he doesn’t like,” Mal says, because she knows she can’t get fired until Val in the sharpshooting pool qualifies on her defensive driving.

Hal sighs. “We’re not just a formality, Lieutenant. We’re the General’s eyes, ears, and hands while he focuses on more important matters. He’s the Secretary of Defense. It’s not his job to watch his own back anymore.”

“He’s busy watching something else,” Mal says innocently, and when Hal shoots her a censorious look, she adds, “The country.” 

“My point is,” Hal continues pointedly, “The chief _can_ be a generalist if he needs to, but he and the rest of the country benefit when he’s able to hone in on his specialties. However. He and Mr. Elric _are_ both veteran alchemists. Chances are, in a fight, don’t need our help. Our job is to be on guard when they’re occupied, and provide backup should they request it. Once we’re in a cleared location, we’re to be as hands off as possible. They know how to call us if they need it.”

“So when they’re _not_ calling specifically for us, you should ignore all the other stuff you hear,” Mal says helpfully. “And we do mean all of it.” 

Sal gives her a mildly lost look. “Like…” 

“Elric is gonna sound like he’s getting murdered,” Trent translates. “A lot.” 

Sal looks bewildered. Poor sweet lamb. “Murdered?”

“They have sex,” Mal clarifies, for Sal’s dear little face creased in hapless confusion. “Elric’s a screamer.”

Hal sighs. There was a time when he’d worried about Ed Elric; in the military so young, fresh-faced and talented and blond, no family to look out for him save his younger brother. When he’d been introduced to Hal on General Mustang’s arm Hal had felt the quiet doom of responsibility close over him: State Alchemist or no, Elric was still so much younger, and the General is a fucking shark. Hal had thought he would have to take his boss aside and have a word, man to man, about what he thought he was doing.

Thank every god he didn’t make _that_ mistake. These days Hal definitely still worries, but for entirely different reasons.

“...You guys are hazing me again, aren’t you,” Sal says after a moment. 

“I wish,” Trent says, staring a thousand yard stare at the jars of pasta sauce and canned peaches. “I walked in on them my first week on the job because I thought someone got past us and they were being attacked. You only make that mistake once.” 

Mal scoffs. “I don’t see why any of you were surprised. Anyone with eyes can tell neither of them would be able to get their rocks off outside of those bullwhip and bunny suit dungeons.”

Sal looks from Trent, to Hal, to Mal. “Like. _Actual_ screaming?”

“Actual screaming,” Trent says grimly. 

“But isn’t that -“ Sal visibly tries to reformat his sentence. “Shouldn’t we - I mean - It’s not supposed to sound like it hurts? Isn’t the point to enjoy yourself?” 

Mal grins and crosses her legs, a little gleam in her eye as she looks Sal up and down with renewed predatory interest. Hal prays for the man’s immortal soul. “Oh, don’t worry. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” she purrs.

As if on cue, a howl echoes from somewhere inside the house. Sal jerks up like a startled meerkat. “That’s right,” Mal says with relish. “That ain’t the neighbors’ Dobermann.” 

“Maybe it’s - the cat?” Sal offers weakly, which is the wrong call entirely. That’ll only identify him as prey to Mal, and her blood instincts have already been riled up.

Mal leans a little further forward. “Do _you_ think it’s the cat?”

Sal stares at her with some incomprehensible mix of terror and arousal that Mal usually evokes in the younger, fresh-faced special forces operatives. Hal privately adds a new matching towel set to the General’s shopping list.

“I,” Sal says, clearly knowing what the correct answer is but just as clearly not having the strength to fully face it. “No?”

There’s an audible _thump_ of a knife embedding itself in drywall. Sal startles badly; Mal just laughs and crunches down on another cheese stick as Trent sighs and looks like he wishes very much for his cranberry juice to become liquor.

Hal sighs and pats Sal’s shoulder as another inhuman screech echoes off the rafters. He’s reviewed Sal’s service history, and he should really be more inured to the sound of blood-curdling pain than this. He can only hope the kid toughens up. 

-o-

They collapse next to the couch, after, sweat cooling as they sprawl over the carpet. Roy blinks lazily up at where Ed’s underpants are slowly touring the room, caught on the rotating blade of the ceiling fan. They were, indeed, very fun. Six months is a long time to go without, but absence does make the dick grow harder. And the heart too, of course. Fonder. Whatever. 

“Fuck,” Ed says weakly. “See if I ever sext you again.”

“You probably shouldn't,” Roy says lazily, scritching his fingers idly through Ed’s chest hair. “Our inevitable subpoenas are going to be exciting enough as it is.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t you rather they get distracted by all the sexy shit when they go looking for your un-Amestrisan behavior?”

Roy snorts, a couple strands of Ed’s hair tickling his nose, because it really does manage to get absolutely _everywhere_ during these rendezvous. “It would only serve to lose us the conservative jury vote when we stand to need it the most.”

“You lost their vote the moment you pulled the strings to get the…” Ed yawns hugely, jaw cracking against Roy’s temple. “The Ishval Financial Relief Fund pushed through the. Legislature. Thing.”

“Ah, well. At least it would’ve been on my own merits.” Roy breathes out deep as Ed snuggles stickily closer, vaguely wishing for a cigarette. “I’m going to have to ask Hughes to get his more bribable Intel children to scrub your indiscretions off my work phone.”

“You deserved it,” Ed mumbles, unrepentant. “Thought you were ignoring me.” 

The only thing that’s being ignored here is apparently the objective fact that Roy’s phone didn’t even receive the photos to give him a chance to ignore Ed or not, but Roy’s feeling magnanimous. “I don’t ignore you. Though if this is what it gets me…” He kisses Ed’s neck. “Maybe I should start.” 

“That road ends with me walking naked into one of your meetings,” Ed says sleepily. 

Roy chuckles. “Budget reviews _are_ coming up. I’ll have Tiffany send you a calendar of optimal timeslots.”

“Cowabunga,” Ed mumbles, scooting down further until he’s talking into Roy’s nipple. “Think we scared off Sal?” 

Roy pinches Ed’s side, but gently, mindful of the fresh redness. “Thinking about Sal, are we?” 

Ed snickers a little, “Someone’s gotta.”

“Mal’s probably working on him,” Roy says contemplatively.

“Poor bastard.”

“Weeding out the weak,” Roy says judiciously. 

“It’s a wonder you have any staff left. People just don’t last around you,” Ed sighs, digging his teeth in a little at one of the tender spots he left earlier that evening.

Roy kisses the top of his head. “You do.”

He feels Ed’s grin, small and smug and tucked against his ribs. “Gotta try harder than that if you wanna scare _me_ off.”

Roy smiles as well, letting his hand rest on the back of Ed’s head. “No, I don’t think I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The blood filter array shows up again bc ayyy we just like that shit & it worked in context. We also decided the porn wasnt working, tone + flow-wise, so we cut it for a morgue file; if yall wanna read that i’ll post a link here once i clean it up and drop it to live somewhere


End file.
